Having appropriate and up-to date information about levels and trends of financial inclusion is a critical first step towards devising relevant policy approaches to further deepen the reach of the financial sector. Interest in collecting such data is increasing across the globe, resulting in the development of a number of cross-country and country-specific data collection strategies in recent years.

Responding to this interest and need, AFI presents this policy paper to help inform financial policymakers and regulators on how to develop a strategy for gathering financial inclusion data using surveys of different kinds. The report considers the advantages and disadvantages of various models and strategies, ranging from simply leveraging already available data sets, to modifying existing surveys to include new questions on financial inclusion, or even to designing and implementing a new financial survey.

The release of this paper is timely as policymakers from 10 AFI member countries meet to discuss financial inclusion data gathering at the upcoming AFI-BOT Introductory Workshop of the Financial Inclusion Data Partnership to be held in Bangkok on March 18th and 19th.